Kinda Whenevs

A bit ago I mentioned that we where looking for a new place to live. I'm happy to report that that seems to have gone through, in a rather more pleasant circumstance than the one I described previously. That said, we're busy as fuck getting things ready and moving and such, so updates will be sporadic for a couple weeks. We'll get back up and running as soon as possible once we're settled.

Kinda Whatevs Presents: Weekly Cinemeh

Here is our first list of movies we watched and what we thought of them. We didn't know if we wanted a theme or not, and just decided to do foreign films as a make-shift theme. We will try to do better with that in the future, if we decide to make themes a thing.

Spoilers abound, so read at your own risk.

Week of 10/27

1: Stalled

Stalled was an odd movie for me. It was very funny in bits, but also pulled some of the crappy stuff that most horror pulls nowadays. It is basically a movie about the worst day in a guys life, a guy who, while working a shit job, is stuck in a bathroom after zombies attack. It was fun, with a couple of very unique scenes that had Eshi and I rolling. If you just want to watch a silly zombie movie on Halloween with a couple of friends, this is a great contender.

Other than those couple of laughs it was a fairly standard zombie movie that pulls something that all to many zombie movies pull. I hate it when a zombie movie decides that it needs to have message or make a point. Horror doesn't need to make a point, that's not why most people watch them, but I understand if you want to, just do it better. If they were subtle about it I would have less an issue with it, but when its this ham-fisted it just seems lazy.

(Eshi) I liked this movie, it wasn't good but it was a lot of fun. It doesn't bother me as much as it does Brian when they include messages in their horror movies, what bothers me is when they cram it down your throat unashamedly. Stalled gets into that territory a bit but I can't entirely blame them, subtlety is a troublesome proposition in modern film.

2: Beyond Outrage

This is the sequel to a movie that Eshi and I loved, Outrage, and both deal with modern yakuza infighting/some level of police corruption. Takeshi Kitano (also known as Beat Takeshi) wrote, directed and starred in both, and he is amazing. He has a nice atmosphere about him, and he did a good job showing the political movements in the yakuza that underlie most of the actions they undertake. Beyond Outrage continues the story of the first movie 5 years later, and has a corrupt cop trying to orchestrate a gang war to further his own ambitions (and he is fucking bad at it).

The movie is the right level of violent, only being overt about it when it needs to accentuate the importance of certain kinds of symbolic violence. A scene that shows this well is when a character bites his own goddamn finger off to show submission to someone he is trying to ask a favor of. This is a great way to make sure that the audience is not so desensitized to violence that important uses of it still have impact. This is antithesis to how most American gangland movies/TV shows seems to lack nuance when it comes to showing violence.

(Eshi) Beat Takeshi is a fucking artist.

3: Age of Uprising: The Legend of Michael Kohlhaas

Age of Uprising is a French/German film (originally titled just "Michael Kohlhaas") based on a novella about this guy. Michael Kohlhaas is a 16th century German merchant who seeks revenge/justice for being wronged by a corrupt Baron. This movie is bleak and heavy. It is basically an exploration of justice and whether justice served from the self is better than justice served from the courts and or God.

The movie struggles a bit near the end and ends kind of anti-climatically and things felt kind of unresolved for me. Kohlhaas gets what he wanted but its ultimately unsatisfying, and I am not sure if that was meant to be that way. It could be that the movie was trying to point out that the justice from the justice system and justice meted out by the hurt party are both, at some point, unsatisfactory to society. If so it does a great job of making the viewer feel that way.

Mads Mikkelson is also fantastic. I think that he is one of the best actors I have seen in a while, not just with this movie but with Flame y Citron and the TV show Hannibal. He emotes well, and does a great service when it comes to the dark, oppressive tone of the film.

(Eshi) I cannot stress how oppressive this movie is. It takes place almost entirely in the countryside and yet never for a second does it feel more open than a firmly planted casket. I spent the entire film completely immersed in the futility so masterfully created. Brian mentioned that the film is a commentary on Justice. The most interesting demonstration of this for me was the absolute worthlessness of the theologian character. That single character and his interjection of how a "good christian" finds justice, and how completely he fails to engage, was spectacular.

4: Las brujas de Zugarramurdi (In the US as Witching and Bitching)

LBDZ is a horror/comedy that takes a satirical look at gender politics, and does a great job with it. Both the protagonists, represented as some very badly misogynist, self-centered criminals, and the antagonists, "feminist" and literally man-eating evil witches, are shown as being bad due to the hard line they take when it comes to their positions. Only when the two sides (or at least one person from each side) work together and trust each other does any kind of good relationship occur.

This is the first movie that I have ever seen from Spain and I was very impressed. It was great at creating a surreal, and in an odd way kind of whimsical, depiction of the world; with people acting normal in situations where running away would have been more than appropriate. I would suggest watching it with an open mind as it took a while for us to realize that it was supposed to be a satire and not poorly veiled assholery.

(Eshi) This was the least sexist film about sexism I've ever seen. Through and through it displayed an honesty and earnestness about a subject that is nearly impossible to be honest and earnest about. Also, one of the only movies I've seen that even remotely handles a child character well.

5: The Woman in Black

The last movie in our list this week was The Woman in Black and it was solid, if slightly disappointing. Its a movie about a sad lawyer who goes off to a hamlet in northern England to deal with a dead woman's will, and while he is out there shit goes down. Its a sadly vanilla story with a good, but very telegraphed, ending. Daniel Radcliffe is good at what he does, and the rest of the acting was pretty solid. The movie as a whole though feels flat. Its all stuff we have seen before done well, but not so well as to be exceptional.

I have written about how I feel about horror before, and I want to add something to my list of things that need toning down and or elimination: musical cues. If I am supposed to be scared and you have done a good job setting it up, I will be. You don't need to add tense music only at all the exact times in which shit is going down. WiB does this for every jump scare to "enhance" them, and that just felt cheap. This is especially unacceptable when it ruins the really well established scares.

(Eshi) There were things I really enjoyed about this movie. The environment was beautifully arranged, there were a few well developed scares, and Daniel Radcliffe is one of the rare male actors who can play tortured and empathetic without just being pathetic. Other than my appreciation of set direction and a growing respect for Danny Rads, however, this one was a bit bland, more than bordering on stereotypical. Would be a good third movie in a five movie horror marathon.

Unreasonably Hostel

As you may have gathered Brian and I watch a fair number of movies. During our cinematic escapades I've noticed something that grates on me in a weird way. I have yet to see a movie service, streaming or otherwise, that can figure out their genres.

Its not a huge deal, I'm not suppressing facial ticks or digging up the ol' Nailbat of Disapproval, but when I'm looking for a nice psychological thriller and Netflix offers Kiss the Girls and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back in the same breath; it goes from funny to annoying pretty quick. That one isn't that bad, I can dig it, bugs happen in any automated system. The thing that bugs me the most is (as per usual) horror movies. It seems these days that anything that has a monster or any significant gore in it counts as horror. Black Death is not a fucking horror movie, an amazing, slow-burn, psychological thriller and one of Sean "Dying is my Job" Bean's best showings sure, but scary it ain't. Now, the organizational failings of a few internet services is disappointing but I can't entirely blame them when neither the people making the movies, nor the people watching them can get their shit together.

There has been a slow divergence in what kind of story is presented as audiences change, but this change hasn't really been observed in our categorizing genres. Thriller has slowly evolved out of the horror category but that's about it. Horror movies are still essentially any movie that makes you any kind of uncomfortable. Comedy is still just anything that can cram more than two one liners into a script. Sci-fi and fantasy still get crammed together (which I kind of understand, considering most people only really differentiate in that one is uses technology and one uses magic) and Action/adventure, well, I don't really have any issue with that one actually, both the movies in the genre and the genre itself are a little too straight forward to fuck up.

I admit that I talk a lot about needing better categorization of things but I feel it really is important. Specification is an absurdly important aspect of language, its how we know what the fuck people are talking about. Its how we know what we're looking at. This is especially apparent with movies. I like gore, the occasional torture-porn movie can be a delightful romp through the nastier bits of the psyche, but torture-porn isn't fucking scary. Unsettling, hopefully, but not scary; and the urges that lead to either watching horror or gore are very fucking different. Wanting to watch a bunch of shitty, pandering cunts get ironied to death makes someone getting skull-fucked by a power drill a disappointing sight.

Rom-coms are another pain point for me, but honestly less because I'm usually looking for something else when I stumble on a romantic comedy and more because they're just... just so bad. But that's another post entirely.
 
I know its nit-picky but I think we can do better than just shoehorning disparate themes together under whatever happens to be handy. We're in charge of this shit, we can make new categories as new subjects arise and, considering how much time us movie geeks spend on things like this, there isn't any reason not to make the fucking effort.

The Ship Of Theseus

I have brought up thought experiments before, and I would like to share another one with you, dear reader. The "Ship of Theseus" is a thought experiment that I love thinking about. As with most thought experiments it doesn't really have a final or absolute solution, but it is a great way of examining the concept of Identity, and how it ties in with the physical self.

I like using a more modern version of this experiment, but really anything made up of smaller parts works, but for now I will explain it in the way I learned it from the Philosophy and Sci-Fi class I took in school. The Millennium Falcon is a rather large spaceship. If you take away one part and replace it, is the ship still the Millennium Falcon? What about if you replace a second part? What about if you replace every part of the ship? Is it still the same ship? At what point would this ship cease to be the Millennium Falcon, if it ever would? Hell, you can get more fancy with it if you want. What if I slowly replace all the parts in the Millennium Falcon over time, but take the original parts and put them together in another location. Which one is the Millennium Falcon?

This forces the experimenter to examine where Identity lies. Does Identity lie in the parts themselves? After all that is what the Millennium Falcon is, a collection of parts. But replacing bits of it, surely, wouldn't make it a different entity, would it? Does the identity of the ship lie in one part? If I replace everything but, say, the ships computer, would it be the same ship? Is the "soul" or "spirit" of the thing where the identity lies?

Like I said a few before, there is no real way to answer this. There are responses on both sides (yea or nay), but both leave something to be desired. I have not explained most of the answers because I think It would be fun to see how people, just hearing the basic experiment, would respond. Please leave a comment on how you would answer the main problem of this experiment.

Adventures in Househunting

So we've been in the early stages of moving lately; looking for a new place, getting rid of the things we don't need etc. This process has illuminated for me a pretty considerable failure in our society. Its a big reason we're leaving our current home and the prevailing reason we haven't lined up a new place yet. The problem is essentially one of expectation and demand. The leasing agency is running a business, I have demand for a home.

Now I understand how this comes about, one party is looking to earn a consistent profit and over time increase revenue; the other party is typically in various states of anxiety for need of a place to live. This puts nearly all the leverage in the hands of the party seeking profit. The tricksy aspect in our case is that we aren't in any rush (which would usually mean buying a home which is a different beast altogether), meaning that relatively normal behaviors and manipulative techniques, while still used, are ineffective.

About a week ago the family and I were at a walkthrough at a prospective place; nice, relatively large, pretty solid kitchen, everything we were looking for. The only real problem with the place was the fact that the kitchen was floored with unglued, shitty linoleum. I mentioned that I spend a lot of time in the kitchen and asked if that was a possible fix. It was not. That's not really a problem in itself but the fact that his reaction was essentially surprise at being called out was troubling. we were still pretty alright with the place though so we applied.

He got back to us a couple of days later more than a bit zealous to sign the lease. Which again not a problem in itself, we asked for a copy of the lease so we could take a look at it as a household and make sure everything was amenable. This is where the deal broke. At this point the landlord got huffy and started talking about all the other people who wanted the place. He said he'd email me the lease but to get back to him as soon as possible. So I waited while he sent me the lease and talked to Brian and my wife about his overall attitude, the lot of us becoming less enthusiastic by the minute. I received the lease and started poking through it only to immediately get a call from the landlord.

Did I get the lease? There are just, like, sooo many people on hold for the location, waiting with baited breath to see if we'll snatch it up. We really need to get this lease signed as soon as possible. Yes, yes, thank you. I read through the (blank) lease he's sent me and thought some more about how he'd treated us as prospective clients. I never heard the words "just sign the fucking lease" but that was very much the gist of our communication thus far. After a few about two hours later he called again once more insisting that we get the lease signed because of all the other frothy-mouthed applicants. So I told him that we weren't interested. His response was almost comic. He blustered for a second and then repeated his claims about just, so, so many applicants. Then he hung up.

I realize that's a bit long-winded and I could just be oversensitive, but why would I want to rent from someone so blatantly manipulative and pushy? Why would anyone? I don't know. It bugged me and now I'm sharing it with you. For whatever that's worth.

A New Project

Eshi and I both love movies, and have wanted to watch more for a while now. A little while ago I suggested to Eshi that, since we have a lot of time on our hands currently, we should watch a movie a day. Now that our blog has hit the sixth month mark, if you include our previous incarnation, I wanted us to include that with our blog along with us doing some analysis/review of the movies we watched. It might not be one movie a day (probably more like 4-5 a week), but we will try our best to get close to that goal.

So, starting next Friday I will be posting a list of the movies we watched along with a bit of a review of them on here. If anyone has any suggestions for movies to watch please let us know in the comments section of any of the posts pertaining to this project.

Its Not Stupid, Its Advanced.

I talked about transhumanism a while back with regard to some of the common issues/misconceptions about the community. One of these issues involves the fact that some people will not want to be synthetically (or biologically) improved, resulting in a class system where the unmodified are the natural second class citizens. I touched on this issue in my last post and intentionally limited myself to discussing the lack of malice towards the unmodified. This is not that post.

I appreciate that augmentation is a choice, I approve of it being a choice. A real choice even, as far as I'm concerned capitalism and transhumanism are opposed ideals, so financial restrictions should theoretically be absent. However, I feel that choosing not to modify is essentially an existential failure. Those who remain "natural" wont just be at an absolute disadvantage in nearly every aspect of life, they'll have done it to themselves.

Assuming my hopes and dreams are relatively accepted by the H+ revolution and we do away with scarcity dependent systems, the inequity leveled on the unmodified would be, not just easily remedied, but their own fault. The most common source of hesitation to modify is the fear, for one reason or another, that getting augmented in some way diminishes one's humanity. I've covered that ground before, but if you have some religious or philosophical block that prevents augmentation that's fine, but your choice to not develop with your environment makes you obsolete. I'm not speaking from a position of cruelty, I don't hold any ill will as long as those who have no desire to modify don't try to prevent me from doing it. Its fucking evolution. Voluntary evolution, admittedly, but when the species adapts into something demonstrably superior choosing not to evolve with it demands divergence. The unmodified will not be able to keep up with people who have been upgraded, their ability to contribute, or even effectively interact, with society will disintegrate.

When human upgrading becomes an option it will be the most important, life changing decision anyone will make. It will also be an absolute wall in society. The modified and unmodified will quite rapidly segregate as the abilities of the one group grow beyond the imaginings of the other. I'm not saying that people who choose not to change themselves will or should be culled. I am saying that, past a certain point, co-civilization wont be a viable option, and if the unmodified have a problem with that, the impetus is on them to evolve.

That Movie Where Cockneys Shoot Former People

There is a lesson that I too often forget after I learn it. Don't judge a movie by its title/perceived subject matter. Eshi and I just finished (literally, like moments ago) the movie "Cockneys Vs Zombies", which we both had put off watching because it sounded like another shitty zombie movie that was made because zombies are popular right now. I saw something this morning that said that it was a surprisingly good movie, so I mentioned it to Eshi and we ended up watching it.

Aside from relatively standard zombie movie bigoted undertones, it was super funny. Not the most cerebral of movies, but nonetheless one of the better horror/action/comedy movies I have seen in recent times. It has some of the most genuinely original zombie jokes that I have seen and is well worth the watch if you don't mind watching something that is super serious. It did get slightly preachy about a subject that, having never stepped foot in the UK (sadly), I am not super familiar with; that British working class communities are all about overcoming adversity, but it wasn't so bad as to make any part of the movie unwatchable, just a little saccharine at times.

As I mentioned, this is not the first time this has happened. A few years back Eshi and I were also shocked to see that "Hot Tub Time Machine" was far superior to the initial impression that either of us had. It was irreverent, played well with time travel, and had some great moments of humor when it mixed the two. I, at the very least, was surprised by this and have tried to keep up with watching movies that looked like they could be bad just based on the concept.

I have subsequently had a mix of surprise and disappointment that lent more towards the later and so I succumbed to a kind of complacency and just watched movies that I was more certain would be good based on initial impressions. Cockneys Vs Zombies turned that around, and I am glad. It reminded me that movies (and books, video games, etc.) shouldn't be judged by their cover/brief netflix descriptions. And so, I urge you, dear readers, to take a chance on a movie. Find something that you have passed over because it might not be good and give it a try. You might get pleasantly surprised and if so, you're welcome.

YKWFA: The Least Violent Way to a Man's Heart.

Not long enough ago and not far enough away my wife and I lived with her mother. Now I love my wife spectacularly. Seriously, its crazy. But she and I agree that her mother is a vile, shit-souled, solipsistic, thunder-cunt. I know, I know, this is supposed to be about something fucking awesome, not the subhuman bilge waste that spawned my lovely wife; but it follows, I promise. When she wasn't manipulating my wife or insulting me she was a terrible food snob, not in that she was overly fussy about what she ate (though she did insist that her cats ate organic gourmet lobster cat food), but in that she was bad at being a food snob. So bad in fact that it inspired me.

I once heard this woman utter the phrase "Oh, I don't really care, food is really just fuel." on the 45 minute drive to the organic farmer she bought milk and eggs from. That stopped me pretty much dead. Her hypocrisy boggled my mind, but more than that I was inspired by how wrong she was. I'm a tubby fucker, so I've always had a complex relationship to food (that link rambles a bit and is a bit nsfw but I love Ed Byrne and he makes my point well... eventually). She pushed me over the edge. After that point I loved food, no question, no hesitation. Food is fucking awesome. See, I told you we'd get there.

First, let me say, "food is fuel" is an accurate statement; "food is just fuel" is super fucking not. Food is a massively complex amalgamation of social/cultural/ethnic/religious standards and compromises layered over geological/climatic/biological limitations wrapped in what is both one of the most complex, and the most accessible, sciences and sprinkled liberally with the ecstatic neuro-biological phenomenon of flavor.

Anthropologically, food is almost frighteningly important. The production of food stuffs, the security of food resources, the social systems that arise surrounding going from seed to stomach are all fascinating, interdependent structures that are incredibly enlightening. Not to mention the wondrous cultural gestalt that happens when people from different food-cultures share food with each other. Food can tell us about people, describe ancient environments and technologies, and lubricate peace between cultures. It also has an anthropological "dark side". If you don't believe me go to Philadelphia and mention cheesesteak, hell just saying the word "baklava" in certain company can start fights.

Beyond anthropology there are advanced and novel chemical processes involved in cooking at every juncture. The process of turning light and dirt into energy and passing that energy up the food chain, the way different additions and catalysts (some in terribly minute quantities) can change the flavor, content and structure of a dish, down to the way the body processes different nutrients in different preparations.  Have no desire to hunt links for every other word in this post, though I could, so here's a starter link, study up. Also, food is mighty tasty.

I could go on about this for days, the science and culture of food is one of the most beautiful, nuanced aspects of day to day life. Whether or not people think about it, what and how we eat plays a massive role in our lives top to bottom. If you take anything away from this post, let it be this; my mother-in-law is a cunt, and food is fucking amazing.

Same as it Ever Was

For the past couple of years 3D printing has been getting a lot of attention in the media so naturally there's a lot of false information being propagated. I don't want to talk about that today, but I do think that its important to know about so here are a couple of links. Now, while a lot of those burst the bubble as to what 3D printing is currently, do not be discouraged. The best minds of our generation are working on making it even better, but for now I want to talk about one consequence of 3D printing that has come up often in forums talking about 3D printing that I have seen.

I was perusing Kotaku the other day and they had a post on a person who was 3D printing weapons from a video game. This was cool, if slightly unimpressive to me when compared to people like the Man At Arms crew who make functional, full size, versions of all kinds of replica weapons instead of small plastic replicas. After I was finished ogling the pretties I decided to read the comments. There was a poster who talked about 3D printing as being the bane of all creative people. After all, its just printed out rather than hand made. To the poster, and a few of the the people who agreed with them, it meant that people will be devaluing their work by producing something cheaper with less work, instead of figuring out how to do something yourself. This argument is something I kind of hate, because people have been making it for centuries. There are two main problems that I have with it.

One, just because something is made easier doesn't make it better. Sure, more people will buy the cheaper version, but that's mainly because they don't care about quality, just something cheap and easy. You shouldn't want these people to buy your product, because they will not respect it. Let me give you an example. Ikea. They sell cheap, easy to assemble, furniture. You buy it because you don't care if it only lasts for 2-3 years, its cheap. Lets say a table is $100. Now, you go to a carpenter and order a table, or even an antique store and buy a nice old mahogany table. The ordered table or antique table are going to be way more expensive, but the quality is vastly superior, resulting in not just a more pleasing furnishing but a more durable one as well. This is why there are still tables around from 100 years ago. No Ikea table today will be around that long ever. If people care about quality they won't buy the mass produced shit, and if I was the carpenter who made the table, I sure as hell wouldn't want my table to go to anyone who didn't respect the work that went into it. The same goes for food. I doubt that major chains like McDonald's have any lasting impact on quality restaurants. They might have had to increase prices to make up for lost sales, but people tend to be willing to pay more for quality.

The second problem I have with this complaint is that it has been made about nearly every advancement in production ever. Someone shows up with a more efficient ways to do things and people say that it will kill jobs. Companies pick it up anyway because its cheaper for them (after all, making money is a company's only real concern), and people may lose jobs, which sucks. It's worth noting, however, that the result of this process (often referred to as "progress") is a net improvement in overall quality of life. I hate this because I can't really think of a solution to that problem other than retraining for something else, which some people won't want to do, but that's another post.

People panic when they face change. Sure it will have some negative effects in manufacturing, but think of the benefits it produces (or will be able to in the near future). Artificial organic prosthetics, more engineering jobs, and tea, earl grey, hot. Its a cost benefit analysis, and very rarely is progress ever on the negative side alone.

People are worried that things will change for them, and it will, but that is not always a bad thing. I have talked a lot about change in my past posts and its the same thing here. People who resist change will either be swept along while change happens anyway or just accept it and adapt. The further technology advances the need for "standard" jobs falls apart, and by being afraid of that and calling for a halt on progress instead of just adapting as we go along, you just drag everyone down and that's fucking cowardly.